I Loved You First
by IoanNemos
Summary: "Now, maybe you don't have any tumors. Well, don't worry ... we took care of that too." ::: Human!Wheatley x Chell, song-inspired drabbles. Warning: character death.


_A/N: I made myself extremely sad writing this._

As far as I'm concerned, Wheatley's humanity is a law of the universe; by extension, so is Wheatley x Chell. You have been warned. Also, the idea of Wheatley playing piano is too wonderful for words.

Fic title is from Regina Spektor's supremely sad song "Samson". It is beautiful. Go listen.

* * *

**I Loved You First**

* * *

They are inseparable, joined at the hands. When asked how they met, he looks abashed and she smiles enigmatically; neither elaborate.

Physically, they're like day and night. He's blond, she's brunette; he's rail-thin, she's well-built; he's tall, she's short. He chatters about everything and nothing; she says only his name, unless the situation calls for a one-word sentence.  
While they sit in the waiting room, he murmurs in her ear and she nods periodically, and the fingers of his right hand appear inextricably intertwined with the fingers of her left hand. When the nurse calls him, they both stand, and the nurse's hesitation is overruled by his apologetic smile and her immovability from his side.  
The tests are handled with a tightening of their hands, nothing more. The test results (_cancer_) are handled exactly the same way.  
Their knuckles whiten, and they both nod, as if they both have it.

* * *

Fingers on keys, skittering, tripping-  
"What are you doing?"  
"Composing."  
Melancholic, key of D minor-  
"_-which is the saddest of all keys, I find. People weep instantly when they hear it-_"  
Fumble, stagger, six/eight time?-  
Cut time?-  
Twice as fast?-  
Slow and sad?-  
_No no no no no-  
_Arpeggio, _ritardando,_ ppp, barely-there strokes-  
"Wheatley?"  
_How do you chart the curve of a cheek in musical notes?  
Why would you think you could?  
_Leaps, bangs, ten keys or more tangled-  
"Wheatley?"  
"I'm calling it 'Chell.'"  
_What will I leave behind?  
Who do I leave behind?_

* * *

He has submitted, for now, to the idea of recovery. But it is not a hope, it is a tether, a rope around the waist to be tolerated until she can bear to untie it.  
Depression is expected; that doesn't make it easier to bear.  
The chemotherapy is awful. He's so exhausted from it some days he can barely get out of bed, and he feels as if it's killing everything inside him.  
His no expectations are hurting her, and hurting her hurts him, so it spirals into a vicious cycle down an emotional drain.  
He's very tired of hurting.

* * *

_No change_ and _I'm so tired_ and _A year at most_ and-  
Everything is numb, even the tears slipping down his face can't be felt, and-  
"It's a few months but I'll be worse than useless and sick all the time and-"  
"Wheatley-"  
"No, no, I don't want to be sick, I want-"  
A swallow, a clutching of her fingers-  
"I want to do what we can, I want to fill it all with you, not appointments and hospitals-"  
She shakes her head.  
"Chell-  
"Please."  
She stands in the doorway an hour later, face tear-stained but calm, and nods. "Okay."

* * *

They drive, he talks, she listens.  
They stop at all the historical markers and take pictures and wonder what it looked like when it was '_-on that historic day-_'.  
His hair hasn't grown back yet, so they go shopping for hats and scarves and try them all on and take pictures and laugh loudly and are never out of arm's reach.  
They eat when they're hungry and sleep when they're tired, regularity bedamned.  
They go to museums and movies and zoos and take pictures and laugh loudly and cling to each other like magnets.  
He fills his months with her.

* * *

Crickets chirp all around them in the deep blue of midnight. Another meteor streaks across the sky, and he gasps, pointing, as if she hasn't been looking with him. "Ooh, look. There goes another one."  
"Mm," she says, stroking his quarter-inch of hair, stiff and white-blond. His head is resting on her stomach and she can feel his voice vibrate.  
"Let's stay here all night."  
_We'll be stiff and cold tomorrow._ She nods. "Okay."  
"All the light we're seeing has come across billions of miles," he whispers. She can just make out his eyes in the dark, wide and amazed.

* * *

She can hear his frown. "This is more complicated than it looks." His fingers twitch, then disentangle themselves and the brush goes through her hair again. "Sorry."  
She hums. Usually she can't stand this, but a timer in the back of her mind is counting down and she ignores the muscles that want to squirm.  
Strands of her hair play through his fingers and with something closer to experience than skill he begins to French-braid it again. "Oh, there it is! Got it!"  
She hums again.  
"You're beautiful, you know."  
The room's air disappears and without warning she starts sobbing.

* * *

She sits alone in the kitchen  
waiting for nothing  
when he comes in  
trembling  
apologetic  
and she fears.

"What is it?"

He agonizes  
stammers  
something about a waste of her time  
and what is he to her  
and shouldn't even have asked-

but he was so afraid-  
lonely-  
_so lonely-  
_  
She cannot cross the room  
fast enough-  
hands held up to slow him down-  
and as he shivers  
weeping  
she grips his hand in hers  
she lays a hand on his breaking heart  
and she silences him with a kiss  
only coming up for air to say  
"I love you."

* * *

We have begun  
to slow  
down

as you tear easily  
like white fragile crumpled  
tissue paper

(but quiet  
content  
peaceful

and I rush  
to make  
each moment  
count

To catch  
every moment  
as it slips away

to store  
every memory  
in a photo album

smiles and tears)  
Remember when  
we went to that church

and tried to find  
the oldest tombstones  
and the most unique names

Then you said  
Isn't it a pretty church  
Let's go inside

And the pastor was there  
and asked if we were married

And I said  
not yet  
Would you?  
And you started  
and smiled

* * *

She doesn't tell him she can't find anything about the fall of Aperture.  
She doesn't tell him she can't find anything about Aperture at all.  
She doesn't tell him she can't find anything about the missing astronauts.  
She doesn't tell him she was kicked off a forum for asking about the missing astronauts.  
She doesn't tell him someone sent a virus to her computer after asking about Aperture.  
She doesn't tell him that someone has swept Aperture under the rug and his death means more silence.

She tells him daily she'll miss him.  
She tells him hourly she loves him.

* * *

The gravestone is simple. No dates, a single name, a single added line of text because his name alone looked so cold, so formal, so lonely.

WHEATLEY  
LOVED BY CHELL

She clutches, very carefully, the Polaroid taken in a tiny town whose name she can't remember but where they laughed so hard they cried at what she can't remember but she has it, she has captured this moment on a tiny piece of shiny paper, she sees their half-closed watering eyes and matching grins and the way he smiled at her and the way his eyes were electric-blue portals bursting with adoration and she can hear his laughter and the way he said "Man alive..." as he gasped for breath afterward and the way they both hiccuped for a half-hour and how a single look was enough to send them both back into giggles and she remembers the warmth of his hand as it gripped hers under the table.

And viruses bedamned, Aperture bedamned, government bedamned, she will drag the truth into the light if it kills her.

She touches the top of the gravestone, then turns away and doesn't look back.

In her hands, they laugh until they cry.

* * *

"_Well done. Here come the test results: you are a horrible person. I'm serious, that's what it says: a horrible person."  
Is this an accurate depiction of your reading experience? Please let me know in a review._

_(Also, I think GLaDOS designed the formatting of ff dotnet to be as OBNOXIOUS AND DIFFICULT TO FIX AS POSSIBLE DX)_

(Also also, got a message saying to take down the lyrics or the story would be removed. So now it doesn't look right to me, but whatever. _)


End file.
